"As I remember some of the dances as a boy, and also from father's description of some of the old dancing and fiddle playing, there was more variety of tempo than in the present-day dances.

"In some parts of the hall a group would be dancing a polka, while in another a waltz, with perhaps a quadrille or lancers going on in the middle.

"Some of the players in the band would, in an impromptu way, pick up with the polka, and some with the waltz or march. Often the piccolo or cornet would throw in 'asides.'

"Sometimes the change in tempo and mixed rhythms would be caused by a fiddler who, after playing three or four hours steadily, was getting a little sleepy -- or by another player who had been seated too near the hard cider barrel.

"Whatever the reason for these changing and sometimes simultaneous playings of different things, I remember distinctly catching a kind of music that was natural and interesting, and which was decidedly missed when everybody came down 'blimp' on the same beat again."